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For Mrs. Cruise, Perhaps a Cat

IF Tom Cruise, a devotee of the Church of Scientology, weds Katie Holmes in Italy on Saturday, as his spokesman has announced, the event may well be a Scientology ceremony.

If so, the bridegroom might hear the Scientology minister proffer this advice, part of what the church refers to as the traditional ceremony: “Now, Tom, girls need clothes and food and tender happiness and frills, a pan, a comb, perhaps a cat. All caprice if you will, but still they need them.”

And Ms. Holmes could be told: “Hear well, sweet Katie, for promise binds. Young men are free and may forget. Remind him then that you may have necessities and follies, too.”

Unlike other components of Scientology, which are often cloaked in mystery and controversy, the words spoken at weddings tend to be easy to grasp. In some ways ceremonies performed by Scientology ministers resemble those of mainstream religions.

Brides dressed in white are escorted down the aisle by their fathers, said the Rev. John Carmichael, the president of the Church of Scientology of New York and the spokesman for 12 churches in New York and New Jersey. They may be attended by bridesmaids and flower girls. Music is a matter of individual choice, there is invariably a celebration of some kind, and many of the promises are familiar: to love, honor and be faithful through life’s vicissitudes.

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The Scientology minister tells the bride, “Know that life is stark and often somewhat grim, and tiredness and fret and pain and sickness do beget a state of mind where spring romance is far away and dead.”

She is then asked if she is willing to “create still his health, his purpose and repose.”

Similarly the bridegroom is told, “The tides of fortune and of life are sometimes fair or grim.” He should not leave his wife in search of solutions, and the minister says, “Take thy own even though they sleep beneath foul straw and eat thin bread and walk on pavement less than kind.”

Why are such gloomy prospects mixed with the joy of weddings? “We do this strictly in the context of being able to do something about it,” Mr. Carmichael said. “Scientology has workable solutions to life’s problems. It is designed with tools people can use to help themselves and others.”

In the beliefs of Scientology, a fundamental tenet of marriage is contained in the symbol of the ARC triangle. Its three points stand for affinity, reality and communication, and couples are told they must be vigilant about preserving all three.

The Rev. Gaetane Asselin, the international community affairs director of the Church of Scientology International, said, “We ask them to make a promise to heal any upset before going to sleep.” She added, “As long as you maintain the triangle in full, you will understand each other.”

Though Scientology is described by some of its critics as a cult, it does not require that nonbelieving partners convert, nor does it prohibit customs from other faiths in its weddings. In the view of J. Gordon Melton, the founder of the Institute for the Study of American Religion in Santa Barbara, Calif., Scientology is trying in this way to mollify families who might prefer their children to wed in more mainstream institutions. “If the parents are not Scientologists, you have to deal with how to structure them into the ceremony and make them feel at home,” he said.